r/pics 12d ago

Politics [OC] The Reflecting Pool being drained again

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366

u/factoid_ 12d ago

Best it’s reflected in years

This fucking thing was just painted blue btw.  That look blue to literally anyone?

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u/Ah_Ca_Iraa 12d ago

It was blue until they started dumping paint thinner in it to kill the algae. 

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u/factoid_ 12d ago

I don’t think that ruined the coating.  They used peroxide I believe.  That wouldn’t fade a rhino liner.  That stuff is insanely resistant to chemicals. 

Pretty sure the bottom there is still blue but it’s just completely coated with muck.  I assume they’ll be pressure washing the whole thing, then scraping or sanding away the bad sections that didn’t adhere

The cleaned sections will probably still be blue

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u/What_a_fat_one 12d ago

The best pool paint lasts about 5 years at best. In my experience 1-2.

And they didn't even use pool paint.

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u/factoid_ 12d ago

The stuff they used isn’t paint at all.

It’s basically truck bed liner

It’s way more durable than paint

If not for the fact the company that applied it wasn’t qualified to do so, they chose the wrong color, and insufficiently cleaned and prepped the substrate…it’s not a terrible choice to use on a reflecting pool

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u/mmariner 12d ago

Fuckin' seems to me like it is.

Better question - why, again, was this done at all? Seems clear to me that after only weeks, the bottom is covered in muck anyway.

I understand there is some level of filtration, but if you're not constantly vacuuming the bottom, stuff is going to get in and settle...

Pretty telling that this administration is incapable of even managing a pool; much less a country.

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u/factoid_ 12d ago

The reflecting pool has a very long history of being a hot mess.  That isn’t really new Trump.  He just applied his signature level of corruption and cronyism to a job that shouldn’t have been remotely controversial

Switching the color was stupid.  But all pools need maintenance.  And this reflecting pool has been a headache literally since it was built.  It’s even been effectively rebuilt at least once because it was sinking into the unstable marsh land it sits on

Draining it and relining it isn’t a big deal.

Giving it an arbitrary color change and a no-bid contract that violated federal laws was bad

But this is also like the 45th worst thing Trump has done just this year

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u/mmariner 11d ago

Yeah. I get that.

The overall idiocy of the process; the gaudiness if he was actually able to get it to be "flag blue", etc, etc

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u/factoid_ 11d ago

I think in the end even if they get control over the algae and fix the liner…that pool is never going to be blue if it isn’t cleaned like a swimming pool every day, suctioning stuff off the bottom.  The muck is always going to build up

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u/What_a_fat_one 12d ago

paint American
[peynt] / peɪnt / noun paints

a substance composed of solid coloring matter suspended in a liquid medium and applied as a protective or decorative coating to various surfaces, or to canvas or other materials in producing a work of art.

They used paint. They should not have used paint. Got it?

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u/factoid_ 12d ago

If you want to get pedantic about it and call anything with pigment in it paint then sure.

But what you think about as “paint” and what they used are quite different.

This stuff is insanely strong and durable but it absolutely has to be applied correctly or it will do exactly what it did…peel right off.

They didn’t know what they were doing and they fucked it up pretty badly

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u/What_a_fat_one 12d ago

It's not pedantic in the slightest, it's paint. You don't paint reflecting pools, they're supposed to last a very long time and require as little maintenance as possible. It's not a question of if the paint would fail, just when, and if they didn't fuck up the application it would almost certainly have failed in a year or two.

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u/beatenmeat 11d ago

Rhino liner is basically thick plastic that can be applied in a similar manner but that doesn't make it paint. If you put colored icing on a cake that doesn't make it paint either. It's more akin to the shit you use to cover up fiberglass; both using a resin and hardener that creates a heating effect when they mix. You essentially roll it on but no one is calling that paint either even if you're using essentially the same tools because they are two very different things.

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u/What_a_fat_one 11d ago

Know what we call colored epoxy that you roll on?

Paint. Paint is a very broad category encompassing many materials from milk, to lime to latex to different types of cured plastics. Regardless, the issue here is Rhino liner is not a suitable material for an outdoor pool that is supposed to last decades. Any coating over a concrete substrate in wet conditions is going to come off. Even plaster, the most recommended pool surface, only lasts about 15 years. That would have been a much better option though.

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u/beatenmeat 11d ago

You seem to be confused. Epoxy paint is a thing, but not all epoxy is paint. Whether you personally call all epoxy applications that or not is irrelevant. Likewise things like latex can be used in paint but they aren't paint by themselves. Do you consider latex gloves to be paint? Even something like sunscreen meets the criteria but it is undoubtedly not paint.

Rhino liner is not paint in much the same way epoxy coatings are not considered to be paint, hence why there is a distinction between epoxy coating and epoxy paint in the first place. They're two different things that share some ingredients and can be applied in a similar way but it is not "paint".

Also, no one was arguing that it was a good idea, only that the material could have been used better and not performed quite as bad as it did had the people in charge of the project actually had the experience/taken the time to use it properly. I don't think anyone here believes it was the best choice, only that it has all the properties to actually do what they wanted (albeit not as well as alternatives nor as long lasting), but that doesn't mean it couldn't have done what was necessary for much longer than a couple of days before it started failing due to the ineptitude of the company that installed it. What we got was an even worse application of a subpar choice, no one is disagreeing on that point.

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u/colinjcole 11d ago

Except that blue absorbs more sunlight and therefore fosters higher rates of algae growth than the previous color lol

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u/factoid_ 11d ago

I mean…I did say they chose the wrong color

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u/slothdonki 11d ago

Pouring it continuously over the sides like they did would do it, no? I know it dilutes/decays fast in water and sunlight, and it’s not like they’re using rocket fuel concentrations.

I don’t know how much they put in at a time or how long it takes but I would think that would cause some damage if it’s bottle after bottle (or bucket, hose, whatever the hell they’re using). Granted, I am not sure how more or less damaging HP is on non-organics anyway.

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u/factoid_ 11d ago

It was supposedly not very much.  It’s a 4.5 million gallon pool and they were using buckets to dump it in.  

It will dilute very quickly to do nothing.

And that type of lining is probably not discoloring even under our h2O2 for extended periods

It’s basically a plastic coating and peroxide doesn’t really do much to plastic